WHAT A SUMMER OF 2024

Today is like the end of summer, for tomorrow begins September.   But you can enjoy life until Tuesday, for Monday is Labor Day, a national holiday.

All things considered, the world at this very moment is doing fine:

• Internationally:
• The Hamas attacked Israel on 7October2023.  There will be a three-day cease fire beginning tomorrow in the Gaza Strip to vaccinate 640,000 Palestinian children against polio, which has no cure.  The first case in 25 years was just reported, so maybe this is a possible first step to a larger truce to come. Two doses of two drops of a live virus to be taken orally.  2000 medical volunteers will do the job.  The world yet awaits that expected revenge response from Iran on Israel.
• Russian invaded the Ukraine in February 2022, and remains in control.  But the fact that Ukraine has lasted this long, and is now into Russian territory, is a surprise.  The U.S. is approaching a trillion dollars for the Afghanistan war (still spending).  $113 billion so far to Ukraine.  The European Union has committed $162 billion through 2027.

• 
  About the trials of Donald Trump.
• Jack Smith has reactivated action in Florida and DC.  Judge Tanya Chutkan will next week decide how to proceed on Trump's coup attempt on 6January2021.  Chances are that there will be no court action until next year.  However Smith could make things difficult for Trump over the next few months.
• When Judge Juan Merchan of New York will sentence Donald Trump remains largely unknown.  However, he keeps getting insulted by Trump and his cohorts that, surely, Merchan will do something by November 5.
• Trump's Georgia trial is paused, and there is no sign of any reactivation.  What a shame.  This would have all occurred on live TV.
• If Trump beats Harris on November 5, then his legal delays will have worked, for as president he can find ways, with the help of his Supreme Court, to throw them all out.  Good reason for a few more on the fringe to vote for Harris.  All in all, these delays will hurt Trump.

• 
  Abortion has Republicans perplexed.
• Trump/Vance vs Harris/Walz on November 5?

1.6. That’s how many points Harris leads Trump by in RealClearPolitics’ latest polling average. Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEight’s weighted average shows Harris with a 3.4-point lead.

The vice president led Trump by five points—48%-43%—among likely voters in a Suffolk/USA Today poll taken Aug. 25-28, a massive shift from Trump’s 41%-38% lead over President Joe Biden shortly after Biden’s rough debate performance in June (the latest survey’s margin of error is 3.1 points).

• 
  Yesterday, Wall Street stocks rose and the Dow Jones Industrial Average scored a second consecutive all-time closing high at 41,563.   The expectation is that the Federal Reserved will cut interest rates in September.  
• On July 10 you could get 162 Japanese yen for a U.S. Dollar.  Today?  Down to 146.  That's a 10% drop.  Future?

Last week, Georgia Tech upset Florida State in NCAA football.  Nothing startling occurring so far today.  Tomorrow, in Allegiant Stadium, USC vs LSU at 7:30 EDT on ABC.  LSU is favored by 4 points, with an under/over of 64.5.

More important than the beginning of the NFL on Thursday in Kansas City for the Chiefs vs Ravens game, is that Taylor Swift will be there to see Travis Kelce, and has suggested plays for her team.  Says Chief's QB Pat Mahomes, she is the most famous person in the world.  Mahomes married his high school sweetheart in 2022 and has a third child coming.

This will be meaningless for most of you reading this, but last night a brand new University of Hawaii women's volleyball team hosted SMU, which won their league last year, and has a host of seasoned players they added from other NCAA teams.  They now allow teams to pirate other players in most sports.  Hawaii lost a couple to other universities, and added no one in particular.   SMU won the first game 25-7.  The year was essentially over for Hawaii after that first game.  But miracles do happen, and Hawaii managed to win the fifth overtime game, 15-13.  Maybe they will have an interesting team this year.  I have never seen another Hawaii volleyball game where this happened in my life, and I've had an office on the Manoa Campus for more than 50 years.  Actually, the first Hawaii women's volleyball game was only thirty years ago, in 1994.

The 81st edition of the Venice Film Festival kicks off Wednesday with the premiere of Tim Burton’s sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” (Rotten Tomatoes: 78) and starry fare will follow, like the sexually provocative Nicole Kidman film “Babygirl” (RT 91) and the George Clooney-Brad Pitt team-up “Wolfs.” To follow, Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga in Joker:  Folie à Deux, Daniel Craig in Queer and Angelina Jolie in Maria (RT 71)of opera singer Maria Callas in Maria.

Not on that list is The Apprentice, Rotten Tomatoes 77, which will soon be in your neighborhood theaters.

Taking its name from a certain television series, The Apprentice is a shrewd and darkly amusing tragicomedy that dramatises Donald Trump's rise to fame and fortune in the 1970s and 80s. What that means is that some viewers will condemn it for being too harsh and others will condemn it for not being harsh enough. But the filmmakers' cunning efforts to show their subject as a human being rather than a superhero or a supervillain are what make it so watchable. While the movie begins with a disclaimer that many of its events are fictionalised, the former president has threatened to take legal action.

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